Engineering Lead

Explore Group; Cape Town; Remote; ZAR 900,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Explore Group is seeking an Engineering Lead (Mobile) in Cape Town or remote SA to drive the technical direction, architecture, and end-to-end delivery of core mobile applications and backend integrations. You will lead and mentor a team of engineers while staying hands-on and championing modern software craftsmanship.

You will collaborate closely with Product and design teams on complex global rollouts, balancing feature delivery with technical debt and scalable architecture across native or

Qualifications

• 8+ years of commercial software engineering experience.
• 3+ years leading technical teams or acting as tech lead.
• Experience building scalable mobile solutions across native or cross‑platform environments.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical direction, architecture, and end-to-end delivery of core mobile apps and backend service integrations.
• Lead and mentor engineers while remaining hands-on in code.
• Collaborate with Product and design teams on complex global rollouts.

Skills

Mentoring engineers

Hands-on leadership

Mobile architecture

RESTful API design

CI/CD & DevOps

Agile/Scrum collaboration

Job description

Engineering Lead (Mobile) – Cape Town / Remote (SA) – High-Growth Consumer Tech

Explore Group has partnered with an established, fast-growing international consumer technology business undergoing significant investment across its digital product engineering division. The team is scaling a high-traffic mobile ecosystem designed to serve millions of active users across multiple international territories.

The Role:

We are seeking a hands-on Engineering Lead (Mobile) to drive the technical direction, architecture, and end-to-end delivery of core mobile applications and backend service integrations.

In this role, you will lead and mentor a team of engineers while remaining hands‑on in code, championing modern software craftsmanship, and collaborating closely with Product and design teams on complex global rollouts.

Key Experience:

• 8+ years of commercial software engineering experience, with 3+ years leading technical teams or acting as Tech Lead.
• Proven track record guiding and mentoring engineers (ideally teams of 5+) while staying actively hands‑on.
• Deep architectural and hands‑on experience building performant, scalable mobile solutions across native or modern cross‑platform environments.
• Solid experience designing RESTful API integrations, third‑party service connections, and microservices‑backed architectures.
• Strong focus on clean code, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps/mobile release practices.
• Pragmatic approach to technical roadmaps, working collaboratively with Product Managers to balance feature delivery with technical debt.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with modern cross‑platform or multiplatform mobile architectures.
• Experience with subscription lifecycle management, recurring billing, or payment gateway integrations.
• Familiarity with high‑volume customer account management or authenticated mobile apps.
• Experience working within Agile/Scrum environments.